[HN Gopher] Atomic Gardening
___________________________________________________________________
Atomic Gardening
Author : jeffwass
Score : 150 points
Date : 2021-05-21 11:08 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| mlang23 wrote:
| Thinking about this actually makes me sick to the stomache.
| rbinv wrote:
| Same thing happens naturally all the time.
| pharmakom wrote:
| So The Simpsons episode with "tomacco" wasn't entirely
| unrealistic!
| b3morales wrote:
| Tomatoes and tobacco are actually reasonably closely related
| already: same Family, Solanaceae. (I wouldn't be surprised if
| that fact inspired the episode.) They might even be cross-
| breedable as is.
| ambyra wrote:
| The Simpsons Tomacco episode comes to mind: "ugh, this is
| terrible... I want more!!"
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'm immediately curious what percentage of non-GMO certified
| produce are cultivars that were produced this way. This approach
| strikes me as being much more likely to accidentally produce
| unexpectedly harmful effects than modern gene recombination.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Why do you think it would be more prone to do that compared
| with newer approaches?
| mumblemumble wrote:
| With gene recombination, you're inserting specific, known
| genes into the organism's DNA. The possible range of
| consequences of that modification is at least reasonably
| predictable.
|
| With atomic gardening, you're changing the genetic code at
| random, and I would guess that you really have no decent way
| of knowing exactly what's changed and what effects it might
| have. So you're only going to notice things that are really
| obvious, or that you specifically looked for. And you can't
| just do a dragnet search for every possible effect, because
| that would get you sent to the 4th circle of scientific hell.
| [1]
|
| Personally I'm not worried about whether Rio Star grapefruit
| is safe to eat. (About as safe as any food can be, that is.
| This morning I stumbled across something about french press
| coffee being bad for cholesterol levels, and can't help but
| think that, if you look hard enough, you can probably find
| some way in which every food is killing you. Which isn't to
| say that nothing matters, but one of the things that does
| matter is effect size. But I digress.) It's been around for a
| long time and people have been eating it with no apparent ill
| effects. But I'm pretty sure I'm not using the same risk
| calculus as folks who belong to the non-GMO certification
| program's target market.
|
| [1]:
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691612459519
| DominoTree wrote:
| Yeah, you're basically scrambling things across an entire
| genome with no way to account for all of the random and
| unspecific changes that may occur.
|
| One thing to consider though is that our bodies have evolved to
| eat all sorts of DNA - fragments and full genes - without
| directly incorporating it into our own genomes.
|
| I'd personally be more concerned about plants expressing new
| allergenic proteins or that sort of thing, but it seems like
| there are already some decent methods in use to detect that.
| Asparagirl wrote:
| Even today, within what could be called the "fancy houseplant"
| community of garden enthusiasts, we hear stories about Indonesian
| farmers purposely and repeatedly putting houseplants through
| airport X-Ray machines to try to induce variegation in their
| offspring. There are also plants like the Pink Congo, where
| growers use ethylene gas and auxin hormones to temporarily create
| pink foliage: https://www.wired.com/story/pink-princess-
| plantfluencers-pin...
| ashwal wrote:
| Where does the fancy houseplant community hangout on the
| internet? I'm intrigued
| SigmundA wrote:
| It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods yet
| almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define it.
|
| Almost every crop and livestock has been genetically modified
| through selective breeding (domestication).
|
| Mutagenesis, which atomic gardening falls under, has been around
| since the 1920's using x-rays and chemicals and currently doesn't
| normally fall under most GMO definitions because its
| "traditional".
|
| There is also profile guided selection, which is just selective
| breeding while using modern DNA profiling to make it more
| effective by watching genetic outcomes directly.
|
| Then there is genetically engineered targeted gene insertion
| which is what most people consider "GMO" but hasn't been shown to
| cause any health issues, its just scary because it's done in a
| modern lab.
|
| It's not that I'm against being cautious with genetically
| engineered organism (testing etc), but what issue are we solving
| by labeling an GE organism "GMO" vs a mutagenic one, or a
| selectively bred one? Is there any data to suggest one is more
| dangerous than the other? I seem to have a hard time finding it.
| asimpletune wrote:
| Let me do my best to convey some potential concerns. To say
| that they're all GMO so what's the problem is sort of either an
| ignorant or disingenuous overloading of the term. Sexual
| reproduction in a way sort of fits with that category (I mean
| it's just selective breeding crowdsourced). But if we restrict
| GMO to only mutations, yeah there are actually legitimate
| issues.
|
| Mutations occur naturally, and overtime nature has evolved
| methods to withstand this. Like the one thing that all
| organisms share, DNA-wise, is the code to faithfully copy DNA.
| You literally never see mutations in this code because nothing
| survives. Beyond that we do see random mutations all the times,
| but they're usually harmful or at best don't do much. Then
| occasionally there are beneficial mutations but they're very
| rare and they happen over long periods of time. Atomic
| gardening is using this exact process albeit speeding it up bu
| increasing the speed that mutations occur.
|
| On the other hand, genetic engineering is selective in a way
| that there is no natural precedent for. We literally have no
| idea if it's not harmful or not. I'm not trying to say this to
| sound alarmist I just mean philosophically speaking you can't
| prove that.
|
| I'll add as an aside that I don't think the condescension that
| you see all the time regarding GMO is a food faith argument.
| There are plenty of scientific reasons to give pause to testing
| this stuff out in production.
|
| As to concrete, practical reasons why we should give pause
| before engineering life with such wild abandon, I'd say
| recombinant DNA is one, but also so is the danger of just good
| ok' mono-crops.
|
| Now let me explain that I'm not personally and categorically
| anti-GMO. I think it's wonderful technology that we can do so
| much with. I just think it's dumb for people who don't have
| degrees in genetics to go on the internet and say that people
| who have any concerns are "amusing" or stupid or whatever
| because science. The truth is it all depends abd there's
| absolutely zero reason to think the GMO can't go horribly wrong
| as some kind of rule.
|
| I'm on my phone so some of this may read weird but I hope my
| point comes across as I meant it. Basically science is a
| philosophical branch rooted in skepticism.
|
| One last thing I'll say is there's a bit of selection bias
| happening. You never hear from scientist who raise legitimate
| concerns because industry has a huge influence in people's
| ability to do research and this their careers.
|
| So in summary, mutations happen all the time in nature. Some
| "good" some "bad". There are dangers but there's been billions
| or years of evolution to buffer against it. Targeted genetic
| engineering like CRISPR is only the same un that there's
| mutations but that's where the similarities end. Like natural
| mutations they can be good or bad. There's nothing unscientific
| or amusing about giving a second thought if maybe there are
| additional differences yet to be seen downstream. To say
| otherwise is categorically unscientific. We should absolutely
| proceed with caution and there are absolutely problems like the
| ones I listed. I mean, many of the people here are programmers.
| How many of us trust _any_ code?
|
| It's a spirit of temperance and skepticism that im putting
| fourth, and I actually think the burden of proof should lie on
| a case by case basis.
|
| Does that make sense?
| tryonenow wrote:
| Most people who oppose GMO don't really understand the
| scientific reasons to do so, and I don't think that all GMO are
| necessarily dangerous.
|
| However what I've come to realize over the years is that if
| mutations can induce positive traits in organisms, they can
| also induce negative attributes. With crude methods like atomic
| gardening, and to a lesser extent crispr, it's quite possible
| for example for a seemingly desirable plant, or even a
| desirable mutation, to inadvertently also introduce, say, the
| production of a carcinogenic or otherwise toxic compound. And
| the difficulty here is that such undesirable effects are only
| likely to be detected through correlational studies decades
| after the engineered genome is widespread and the damage is
| done, if at all. Sure, all of this is possible with
| conventional selective breeding, but orders of magnitude less
| likely given the quantity and randomness of artificially
| induced mutations. AFAIK gene splicing is still a rather messy,
| evolving practice.
|
| The progress of science is marred by unexpected dangers, for
| which we must be vigilant.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO
| foods yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you
| define it._
|
| What I find problematic about many "anti-progress" stances is
| the (very false) mythos around a return to a purer past when we
| didn't do things in such supposedly "corrupt" ways. That stance
| is certainly prevalent in much of the anti-GMO following but I
| would hesitate to tar over it all with the same brush.
|
| The second falsity is that the primary concern with GMO is
| individual human health.
|
| Much of the more informed anti-GMO stances consist of the
| following two views:
|
| 1. The view that the past practices you mention in your comment
| were damaging to ecosystems and while the horse has bolted with
| many of the products of those packages (and reaping the fruits
| of those now is not too problematic) the negative impacts of
| those practices can be learned from to avoid future damage.
|
| 2. That it's a nuanced topic fundamentally about making
| informed decisions about the lifecycle impact of GMO based on
| current scientific knowledge rather than a blanket dogmatic
| opposition to the concept as a whole.
|
| The second point in particular is absolutely not taken into
| consideration in current GMO practices: widespread corruption
| and disregard for impact analyses is well documented.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| The problem with GMO is that you end up with varieties that
| don't naturally come into balance with people and the
| environment, especially since the reality is that GMO implies
| large scale industrial farming with crop monocultures. People
| don't want to experiment with their lives and discover decades
| later that some obscure ingredient in a pesticide has some long
| term effect. Nor do they want to have issues like water tables
| dropping and aquifers getting depleted because the high yield
| crops are not sustainable with a region's water cycle. Cooks
| are worried about losing the diversity of crops that support
| their culinary diversity. Farmers are worried about getting
| bullied and economically enslaved by seed manufacturers. These
| are all risks - and your evaluation or perception or appetite
| for risks may be different - but I don't think it's illogical
| for people to be wary of GMO or want to take it slow,
| especially when operating in a world where humans regularly get
| things wrong and where human processes (like government
| approvals) can be corrupted.
| pfdietz wrote:
| We have large scale industrial farming and monocultures
| without GMOs. We could have GMOs without large scale
| industrial farming and monocultures. So what you are saying
| really doesn't make sense.
|
| These sorts of scattershot incoherent arguments are a red
| flag that the position being defended wasn't arrived at by
| honest reasoning.
| briefcomment wrote:
| I'm guessing it's more about transparency. Monsanto using a
| proprietary genome for the sake of increasing yield at scale
| seems fundamentally different than a local farmer who
| selectively breeds to maintain some heirloom crop. I think the
| former is much more of a black box and has more potential for
| something unexpected to occur than the latter.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Would both of your examples be labeled as gmo?
| mlavin wrote:
| GMO implies a lab process with specific alteration of
| genes, while traditional plant breeding to traits only
| exposes phenotypes as indication of results, and relies on
| the pre-existing variance in species to provide new traits.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| There's two types of people who are against GMOs. Those that
| are afraid of eating genetically modified organisms, and those
| who take issue with how GMOs are used in practice. In practice,
| the most common GMOs (I believe) are Monsanto's Roundup Ready
| crops. The point of that crop is that farmers can spray huge
| quantities of the herbicide glyphosate in to the soil to kill
| all plants in the field without damaging the crop. Monsanto
| swears this is safe but there are many reasons why this
| practice puts workers and eaters at risk and seriously damages
| ecosystems.
|
| So I would love to know what plants are GMO and specifically
| what strain is used and why. This would help me avoid GMOs that
| are used to damage farm ecosystems. This is also why I look for
| certified regenerative organic products - I want the food I eat
| to regenerate the soil, not destroy it.
| codingdave wrote:
| > Monsanto swears this is safe...
|
| Not anymore. The lawsuits challenging its safety ended to the
| tune of a 10 Billion dollar loss.
| mahogany wrote:
| > It always amuses me to find that people are against GMO foods
| yet almost everything we eat is GMO depending on how you define
| it.
|
| > Almost every crop and livestock has been genetically modified
| through selective breeding (domestication).
|
| I agree with your broader point that much of what we eat is
| GMO. But isn't selective breeding a categorically different
| process of modifying an organism? My understanding is that
| selective breeding starts with two things that we already are
| familiar with, and tries to maximize or minimize some
| characteristic in the next generation via traditional
| reproduction. On the other hand, a modern definition of GMO
| includes genetic engineering -- manipulating DNA directly using
| technology.
|
| Is it naive to worry that the latter process might introduce
| unexpected and potentially harmful characteristics, in ways
| that the former wouldn't? Additionally, if selective breeding
| happens slowly over generations, it seems to me that it would
| allow us to more carefully track how the modification of
| particular traits affects the surrounding ecology of the
| organism.
| theptip wrote:
| It's interesting to read Greenpeace and other environmental
| groups' writings to see what they are objecting to.
|
| It seems they are primarily concerned about two types of
| issue; one is why I'd call "safety": gene transfer/escape
| into wild species, unintended ecological consequences, human
| safety of consuming GM plants. Tho other group is around
| "licensing": essentially a deep concern about going down a
| path where plant seeds are licensed instead of bought, and
| all the "Monsanto is evil" concerns.
|
| I think on the safety point there is some FUD about what kind
| of gene transfer is actually biologically possible, but you
| can make a more general rebuttal that selective breeding has
| the same risks, it's just harder to get positive changes into
| your genotype. Maybe Greenpeace would argue that we're
| already endangering the biosphere a bit with selective
| breeding, and going any faster would dramatically increase
| the danger.
|
| On the licensing point, I'm very sympathetic, but I think
| that is an argument for IP law reform or public investment in
| GM, not an argument against GM itself. But of course if you
| believe the safety concerns then you don't want public or
| private research to happen because you think it's prima facie
| harmful.
| mahogany wrote:
| > Maybe Greenpeace would argue that we're already
| endangering the biosphere a bit with selective breeding,
| and going any faster would dramatically increase the
| danger.
|
| This is an interesting point. The practice of using GMOs,
| including the broad category of selective breeding, could
| ultimately lead to much less biodiversity which is, at
| best, not fully understood by us, but seems to be quite bad
| for life.
| xorcist wrote:
| The Cavendish banana is a common and well known example
| of this.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Already has led, although I guess the bigger effect is
| agriculture itself - basically giving those few
| genetically homogeneous cultivars a vast selective
| advantage by converting biologically diverse natural land
| into monocultural fields on a vast scale.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The argument against IP protection for GMOs makes no sense
| to me at all. If there were ever a technology for which IP
| protection was appropriate, it's this one. The plants
| literally manufacture themselves, so if the IP wasn't
| protected the investment in the creation of the variety
| could not be recouped. There would be one season of sales
| then the market would be gone.
| theptip wrote:
| I think it's immensely problematic that a seed can fall
| in your farm, and you can be sued for illegally growing
| Monsanto's IP. More generally I think it's a bad societal
| outcome for one company to use IP laws to monopolize the
| food production economy. I think allowing this will lead
| to a much less robust society.
|
| I'm all for free markets for most markets, but things get
| very bad if people don't have food. So I think there is a
| good case for the government funding research and open-
| sourcing the work here, and also potentially restricting
| eligibility of patents in this area too.
|
| I think your argument is sound in a free-market
| maximalist / small-government libertarian framework, I'm
| just less convinced that the current IP framework
| produces good results in this case.
| pfdietz wrote:
| That scare scenario has never occurred, and it's legally
| doubtful that any such lawsuit by someone like Monsanto
| could succeed. Monsanto itself explicitly said it would
| never sue anyone for accidental contamination.
|
| What Monsanto DID do was sue someone whose field was
| contaminated, and who then repeatedly sprayed the field
| with glyphosate to kill all but the GMO plants, so he
| could selectively concentrate the interlopers to continue
| to propagate. It's this last step that got the farmer in
| trouble.
|
| > but things get very bad if people don't have food
|
| GMO IP protection does nothing to prevent farmers from
| continuing to grow previously existing varieties. So this
| is another scare argument without foundation.
|
| > I think your argument is sound in a free-market
| maximalist / small-government libertarian framework, I'm
| just less convinced that the current IP framework
| produces good results in this case.
|
| I think the anti-IP argument is an underhanded way to try
| to ban GMOs without actually saying you want to do that.
| theptip wrote:
| I don't think you're engaging with me in good faith here.
| I'm making my own case, and clearly; I'm not trying to
| make an underhanded other point.
|
| I'll tap out here. Have a nice day.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I view the entire anti-GMO position as being not in good
| faith, so I have little patience when those making the
| anti-GMO arguments trot out the same well-debunked (or a
| priori nonsensical) talking points.
| DanBC wrote:
| There have been hundreds of lawsuits by Monsanto. I don't
| immediately recognise which case you're talking about. Do
| you have any links please?
|
| > GMO IP protection does nothing to prevent farmers from
| continuing to grow previously existing varieties.
|
| If they buy seed from grain elevator which comingles GMO
| and non-GMO seed (which is what happened in the Bowman
| case) the farmer can't sell what they've grown from that
| seed.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Here's the case I was thinking of (it was canola, not
| soybeans):
|
| https://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-
| cf/decisions/en/item/38991...
|
| As for Bowman
|
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.p
| df
|
| Bowman didn't just do that. He applied glyphosate to the
| field. So, he bought seeds without a license to grow
| them, with the intent to exploit the fact they were
| resistant to glyphosate. This violated the patent.
| wefarrell wrote:
| GMO plants are modified to make them more difficult to
| propagate and produce seeds, in order to protect
| intellectual property. The ecological consequences of those
| variations being released into the wild is devastating and
| has adversely affected farmers who do not grow GMOs.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > GMO plants are modified to make them more difficult to
| propagate and produce seeds
|
| Can you name a single commercially available GMO that has
| this property, aside from being a hybrid (hybrids don't
| breed true, but that's because they're hybrids, not
| because they're GMOs)? It is my understanding that
| there's no real need for any such technology anyway, as
| legal protection suffices.
| theptip wrote:
| I thought this was common knowledge, but I looked for a
| citation and couldn't find one.
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/business/dupont-to-pick-up-
| wher... suggests that roundup-ready soy seeds are viable.
| So perhaps they rely solely on IP for protection.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I think if you drill down on many (all?) anti-GMO
| arguments you will find the evidence for them really
| isn't there. It's remarkable how the whole ideological
| edifice is built on nothing.
| firebaze wrote:
| Occam's razor suggests the best strategy - if available -
| is to suppress natural reproduction, if you were in
| possession of a superior genetic strain, in order to stay
| ahead of the market. Suppressing natural reproduction is
| the same general principle as suppressing others using
| your idea/strategy/copyright.
|
| I'm sincerely curious why this seems so far fetched to
| you. If I were the CEO of a company having the option to
| nudge my researchers into this, I probably would, seen
| from a ethics-detached point of view.
|
| By the way, I'm not anti-GMO; in fact I think it's the
| only way to sustain the whole of humanity until we've
| passed the next great filter. Still I don't buy into that
| line of thought.
| pfdietz wrote:
| No one is holding a gun to farmers' heads forcing them to
| buy GMO seeds. If a particular kind of seed doesn't
| increase their profit they won't buy it. The older non-
| GMO seeds will still be around. They won't be outlawed.
|
| So, the scenario you seem to be thinking of is that GMOs
| will drive down the price of agricultural commodities, so
| that farmers who don't avail themselves of them will be
| unable to compete. But this argument "proves too much":
| it's an argument not against GMOs, but against ANY
| agricultural technology that boosts yields and reduces
| costs. Presumably the Green Revolution is not something
| we should object to because food prices declined.
|
| I think you are on to something in understanding the
| anti-GMO motivation in Europe, though. Farmers don't want
| to have to compete against the more efficient large scale
| farmers in the US. Anti-GMOism is a kind of camouflaged
| protectionism.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Again mutagenesis I would consider "manipulating DNA directly
| using technology" its just using a less targeted and more
| random approach.
|
| Every variation of life today including poisonous and deadly
| plants and animals came from random mutation over time.
|
| For example tomatoes and eggplants and peppers are closely
| related to tobacco and to deadly nightshade. How likely would
| a random mutation create a poisonous version, or one that is
| just poison to some people. Many people are allergic to them
| already.
|
| Artificial selection with artificial mutation speed that
| process up greatly, targeted gene editing even further but in
| a more controlled way.
|
| Which process is more likely to produce harmful side effects?
| Is there data to warrant engineered organisms are more likely
| or is it just unwarranted fear?
| mahogany wrote:
| > Again mutagenesis I would consider "manipulating DNA
| directly using technology" its just using a less targeted
| and more random approach.
|
| Right, I would put mutagenesis in my second category of
| "modern GMO". (Edit: I interpreted your use of mutagenesis
| as the controlled use, as in the original topic of this
| post. Maybe that's not what you meant?)
|
| > Which process is more likely to produce harmful side
| effects? Is there data to warrant engineered organisms are
| more likely or is it just unwarranted fear?
|
| That's essentially what my question was, for traditional
| artificial selection (selective breeding) versus genetic
| engineering. I wasn't making a point one way or another; it
| was a genuine question.
|
| The point about random mutations occurring naturally is
| fair. Perhaps part of what scares people is simply the
| speed of the process, combined with not really knowing or
| understanding what technology is being used in the labs.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Techniques like CRISPR are at least 1000 times more powerful
| than selective breeding. That's why we use them.
|
| Given the food industry don't give a shit about nutrition and
| have spent decades pushing sugar and fat and 101 similar
| things, why would you trust them with tools 1000 times more
| powerful than they already have?
|
| I'm opposed to gmo not because I think it will magically make
| me grow another head or something. I'm opposed to it when it
| doesn't offer anything good for me as a consumer.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I'm in your boat. Gene's are letters in a story. To say "That's
| a salmon gene! It doesn't belong in my tomato!" is puzzling,
| like "That letter belongs to another book! Keep it out of this
| book!"
|
| Anyway, good ol' paleo food was whatever nature provided, most
| of what was happy to kill you. Humans tamed 1000's of plants
| over 50,000 years changing them beyond recognition so they
| wouldn't hurt us with alkalis and poisons. And so the tasty
| bits were bigger and easier to get at. All by genetics.
|
| Sure we can do it faster now. But we're aware of what we're
| doing. Grandparents with crossbred tomato didn't have any idea
| if she was reintroducing a poison or raising the acidity to
| dangerous levels. They were blundering in the dark.
|
| I see no problem with turning on the light, and moving
| confidently.
| b3morales wrote:
| This is oversimplifying in the opposite direction in my
| opinion. The important thing is not the letters, it's how
| they manifest -- the way they're interpreted as instructions.
| So the objection is to taking a paragraph of _Ulysses_ and
| putting it into _The Grapes of Wrath_. Or even better,
| selecting a step from the middle of _How to Build a
| Birdhouse_ and inserting it into the directions for
| crocheting a tea cozy.
|
| If properly chosen, it could certainly have a beneficial
| effect. But DNA is also a much more complex system than a
| book.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Since I share at least 60% of the DNA with about anything I
| eat I don't worry too much about mixing one organism with
| another genetically bad things can happen mixing close
| relatives or distant ones and I am not sure one poses a
| higher risk than the other.
| DominoTree wrote:
| DNA is DNA, be it fragments or full genes, and regardless
| of the sequence, our bodies are pretty damn good at
| breaking down DNA we eat without directly incorporating it
| into our genomes.
|
| Would be pretty interesting if that weren't the case
| though; quite literally "you are what you eat."
| pvaldes wrote:
| > Gene's are letters in a story. To say "That's a salmon
| gene! It doesn't belong in my tomato!" is puzzling, like
| "That letter belongs to another book! Keep it out of this
| book!"
|
| Using the same reasoning we could pick some pieces from an
| apple computer, mount it in a PC and expect that will fit in
| place and work flawlessly because, well... plastic is
| plastic. Right?.
|
| It does not work like that. Organisms has been designed and
| polished for millions of years to work as a whole, all
| expensive useless stuff has been pruned for good reasons, and
| yes, this salmon gene -most probably- will not belong to a
| tomato... because is part of a salmon.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > Mutagenesis, has been around since the 1920's using x-rays
| and chemicals and currently doesn't normally fall under most
| GMO definitions because its "traditional".
|
| Not, is because is a different technique. Hybridizing two
| closely related species is a thing. Introducing the gen of a
| fish into a tomato is another totally different, and mutating
| the gen of one species (often with poor results) is a third
| thing. GMO mix the genetic code of species that can be even in
| different kingdoms.
|
| There is also an international consensus into not including
| selective breeding in the same category as genetically
| modified, for similar reasons. Would be confusing.
|
| The so called atomic gardening had produced several fancy and
| really ugly cacti, but not much more really. Plays in a much
| lower league than hybridization.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Mutating the gen of one species, often with poor results,
| is clearly different than introducing the gen of a different
| species into other that can be even classified in a different
| kingdom.
|
| Genes aren't inherently kingdom specific, and mutagenesis can
| produce genes that don't even exist in nature; moreover, it
| produces changes _all over the genome_ ; when you then select
| for a desired trait, you still have unrelated changes all
| over, whereas there is a whole lot more control and knowledge
| of what you have with transgenics.
|
| Yeah, they are different techniques, but it is insane that
| mutagenesis (especially in its modern forms) is _not_ treated
| as even a moderate concern by the same people who hold up
| transgenics as an existential threat.
| pvaldes wrote:
| The statistical probability of a crop randomly mutating a
| gen that would express a new complex alkaloid from scratch
| is close to zero (We know it because hasn't happened often
| in the last 3000 years)... but can be easily done with GMO.
|
| To blend all those different techniques under the same term
| would be useless and confusing to both science and
| consumers.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| GMO in the sense most people mean it (direct genetic
| modification) almost always also means pesticides.
|
| I think that
| SigmundA wrote:
| So is mutagenesis "direct genetic modification"?
|
| How does GMO mean pesticides? I thought that was more under
| "organic" which is again a very ambiguous and problematic
| label.
| batch12 wrote:
| I think the poster may mean that some plants have been
| modified to resist pesticides sprayed on them and folks may
| not want to eat these plants.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I have never heard of that connection. I was under the
| assumption anti gmo folk were against modified rice that is
| super drought resistant.
| lavela wrote:
| One use if GMO is to engineer a plant, that is resistant to
| a specific herbicide, which is typically sold by the same
| company (see e.g. Monsanto and Glyphosate).
|
| Another use is to engineer plants that produce insecticides
| themselves, which raises the concern if those insecticides
| affect other organisms as well.
| enchiridion wrote:
| Sure there are some anti-science people out there, but most
| people I've talked to are worried about pesticides.
|
| GMO plants are designed to take much higher doses. That is
| a concern both environmentally and as a potential health
| issue.
| _Microft wrote:
| Here are more pictures of such a garden:
|
| https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/atomic-gardening-breed...
| londons_explore wrote:
| My understanding is plants are fairly radiation resistant
| compared to animals... A small fault in the leaf of a plant
| just kills that leaf, but a small fault in your heart kills
| you...
|
| If that's the case, I'd be a little worried even being in a
| plane flying over that garden...
| _Microft wrote:
| The source might be in a container that is shielded in such a
| way that it only allows radiation to escape sideways which
| will then eventually end up absorbed in the dike wall.
| jeffwass wrote:
| I heard about this on the radio and was surprised I hadn't heard
| of Atomic Gardening before. Basically, farmers and gardeners
| would expose large quantities of seeds and plants to varying
| degrees of radiation, and look for useful mutations.
|
| Rio Red grapefruits, accounting for 3/4 of Texan-produced
| grapefruit, were originally created by Atomic Gardening! From the
| Grapefruit wiki, which links to the Atomic Gardening one :
|
| "Using radiation to trigger mutations, new varieties were
| developed to retain the red tones that typically faded to pink.
| The 'Rio Red' variety is a 2007 Texas grapefruit with registered
| trademarks Rio Star and Ruby-Sweet, also sometimes promoted as
| Reddest and Texas Choice. The 'Rio Red' is a mutation-bred
| variety that was developed by treatment of bud sticks with
| thermal neutrons. Its improved attributes of mutant variety are
| fruit and juice color, deeper red, and wide adaptation.[21]"
|
| [20]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/science/28crop.html?_r=1&...
|
| [21] https://mvd.iaea.org/
| superkuh wrote:
| The Rio red variety was not developed in 2007. It was developed
| in the 1980s, in, you guessed it: Rio, Brazil. When I first
| heard about this some handful of years ago I was naturally
| curious about how a researcher in Rio in the 1980s had access
| to thermal neutrons without a fission reactor. After a lot of
| reference digging and discussion on physics forums we came to
| the conclusion it was most likely a penning trap style fusor
| with some thick moderator. The Mars Curiosity rover also
| had/has a penning style trap for generating neutrons to probe
| for underground water sources.
| pfdietz wrote:
| What makes you think "Penning Trap"? Neutron generator tubes
| have been used since forever in the oil well logging
| industry. They use an electric field to accelerate deuterium
| ions into a solid target containing deuterium or tritium.
|
| As far as I know, fusors have never been commercially
| successful as neutron generators.
|
| Also, why would one use neutrons for plant mutagenesis?
| Photons are far easier to make. An x-ray tube will produce a
| given (biologically effective) dose at a very small fraction
| of the cost of a neutron generator.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The Curiosity neutron source is indeed a conventional pulsed
| sealed-tube neutron source, not a Penning trap.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5253560_The_Dynamic.
| ..
| superkuh wrote:
| Sorry I wasn't clear. The DAN and other pulsed sealed tube
| neutron sources use a penning trap for their ion sources.
| But yeah, it was an incomplete and inaccurate wording.
| [deleted]
| legulere wrote:
| Another helpful technique for stimulating genetic changes is
| colchicine, which induces polyploidy.
| hirundo wrote:
| If I take colchicine for gout is there an extra risk of
| polyploidy in my little swimmers?
| [deleted]
| gxqoz wrote:
| Surely the best song (mostly) with this title, Bad Religion's
| "Atomic Garden": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhzhiQA6-Aw
| favoritecolor wrote:
| This is a pretty brute force method for genetic engineering --
| and yet it works! It's essentially just pressing fast forward on
| evolution.
|
| But this is wildly inefficient. Plant genomes are often
| ridiculously large (e.g., the onion genome is 4X the size of the
| human genome), so you either have to throw a bunch of mutagen on
| the plant (which can cause off-target, toxic mutations) and/or
| plant a bunch of seedlings to get the plant you're looking for.
|
| New methods often include introducing new genes with mutations
| through agrobacteria, gold nanoparticle bombardment, etc. without
| needing to actually mutagenize a plant genome. Do your
| mutagenesis on a specific gene in bacteria, and then test those
| random genetic variants in plants.
|
| But for me, what is more exciting is a relatively new shift
| toward targeted mutagenesis directly in plants. For example,
| CRISPR can be used to target mutations to specific genes in situ
| (and not insertions or deletions -- useful point mutations
| through the use of base editors) [0]. I think the directed
| evolution of plants will be a pretty fruitful (lol) area of
| research in the future, and I'm excited to see where that field
| goes. Gotta love new plants!
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41580-020-00288-9 -- see
| section "Mutagenesis and directed evolution"
| dls2016 wrote:
| > plant a bunch of seedlings to get the plant you're looking
| for
|
| This happens anyway, based on my understanding of fruit tree
| breeding at US land-grant universities.
| awild wrote:
| Hop breeding works that way, plants are actively bred. The
| ones that are agronomically useful will see bigger and bigger
| plantings until they are tried at market. When they either
| fail or establish themselves (to the point of completely
| overtaking the market like citra did).
|
| With wine it's similar so I suspect its just how most of this
| works.
|
| https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2021/3/3/how-a-hop-
| ear...
| hirundo wrote:
| How likely is a random mutation in a plant to be dangerous to the
| eater? E.g. a protein sequence changed such that a toxic molecule
| is produced. If subtle or slow acting that could pass a lot of
| expensive testing and make it to market. But is it risky enough
| to worry about?
|
| Sure it could occur with natural mutations too but at a much
| lower rate.
| DominoTree wrote:
| I think the most likely scenario would be the plant expressing
| a new (or modified) allergenic protein, and it seems like there
| are some decent methods to look for those things already in
| use.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251449018_Mitigatin...
| rmbeard wrote:
| Should I try this in my back yard?
| ehw3 wrote:
| Yeah, where do I go to get my tomato seeds irradiated? Is there
| something on Amazon I can buy for that?
| snarfy wrote:
| This reminds me of an article [1] I read a long time ago on
| erowid about people using gout medication to turn cannabis seeds
| into polyploid 'superweed'.
|
| [1] -
| https://erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_cultivation14.sh...
| beefman wrote:
| According to this article,[1] cultivars produced with this method
| include Calrose 76 rice and Todd's Mitcham peppermint, which
| respecively account for roughly half of California's rice crop
| and a majority of the world's peppermint
|
| [1] http://www.ediblegeography.com/strange-and-beautiful-
| seeds-f...
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